Day Thirty-Two
DAY THIRTY-TWO
It’s Christmas Eve! I hope that in all the rush and busyness of the season, you are able to take a moment and turn your gaze heavenward in worship and thanksgiving that Jesus came to earth with the sole mission of reconnecting us with God’s original and eternal plan for our lives.
Gwinnett Campus has Carols Services at 4pm and 6pm and Cumming at 5pm where we will be able to take a moment to make memories as a family, and thank our Savior for all He has done. Register on the Church Center App, it’s not too late!
For the next two days I want to focus on the faith of two incredible women that are central to the Christmas story. Elizabeth and Mary.
Elizabeth has been barren her whole married life and yet after her husband is visited by an angel, they conceive a baby boy. She’s the older cousin of Mary who is only a teenager. Elizabeth had her dream to have a baby on pause for so many years, and now she was past the age of childbearing and as the Bible puts it, her and her husband Zechariah were “both very old”.
I think about God’s plan and timing in history and the fact that Elizabeth was chosen to give birth to John who would prepare the ground of people’s hearts to listen to Jesus.
What an honor it was to carry John the Baptist, the man whom the angel said would have the spirit and power of Elijah! Jesus said himself in Matthew 11 “I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist.
Think about the focus and attention that Elizabeth was able to give her son, the training, and the nurture, all because she had no other children. I think about the wonderful support Elizabeth was to Mary, who was young and not prepared for what she was about to experience. In hindsight we can see it was part of God’s perfect plan, and yet, I also think about those days when Elizabeth had cried herself to sleep because the evidence that she was barren was too much to bear. I think about the shame she felt as others wondered what she had done wrong to deserve such ‘punishment from God.’ I think about the heaviness she felt as she watched other mothers embrace and caress their children, and yet when you read about her in Luke and her conversation with Mary there is not a hint that this sorrow has affected her spirit negatively.
Luke 1:39-45
39 A few days later Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town 40 where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. 41 At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
42 Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. 43 Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? 44 When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. 45 You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.”
I don’t know what delays you feel you are experiencing in believing God to create life where there is only barrenness, but I know that God wants to encourage you today to trust Him and His perfect timing.
I know this for sure, that even in the delays God’s plans are perfect and that He always has others in mind that we can support and help because of the faith journey we have walked.
Scripture to meditate on: Luke 1:1-45